CONTEMPORARY CERAMICS

A resource to contextualize contemporary making｜ celebrating and empowering self-identified women working in ceramics

[contemporary-ceramics]

KAREN KARNES (1925-2016)

Karen Karnes was born in New York, her parents were Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. Her experiences being raised in a working class tight-knit community in the Bronx and the communist philosophies of her parents greatly influenced her practice. Karnes’ attended La Guardia High School, an arts focused high school in New York City then later studied design at Brooklyn College and graduated in 1946. Karnes studied abroad in Italy for one year and then began a graduate program at Alfred University, where she received a fellowship. She left in 1954 before graduating to accept the position she was offered as artists in residence at Black Mountain College. Black Mountain College was an experimental institution for radical and progressive learning founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice and Theodore Dreier, located in rural North Carolina. Karen Karnes had an expansive background in arts education, this informed her own pedagogy which she materialized through her contribution to Black Mountain College.

Although Karen Karnes maintained a very privet life she upheld communalist values  and lived in various cooperative spaces. In 1954 alongside other artists she started a cooperative community were the lines between art and life were blurred and challenged. Karnes separated from her husband and raised her son as a single mother, financially supporting their lives entirely through the income from her wares. This was quite an accomplishment, at this time her work continued to expand in scale. Karnes work progressed to employ sculptural elements and utilized innovative glazing and firing methods, such as salt glaze technique and wood firing. Karnes lived openly with her life partner Anne Standard, who was an educator and artist. Throughout Karnes’ career she held many important positions in various arts councils, she curated shows and organized countless ceramics symposiums. In 1988 her studio caught fire and she was deeply supported by the ceramics community, her work following the fire was at a much smaller scale in production. Karen Karnes lived a politically charged life and had a career of innovation that had a profound influence on ceramic making.

[contemporary-ceramics]

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Alexandra Box is a sapphic eco-feminist living and learning on unseeded Coast Salish territories. She has been working with clay since she was eight years old and clay is her deepest passion. Alexandra is studying visual arts at an art and design University. Growing up she was empowered by the women in local pottery guilds and studios, they freely taught her everything they knew about clay and demonstrated a prospering community of women. She learned so many material and immaterial skills from these women, they taught her that pottery in inherently politicized and that it is a guarded craft with a history of connecting with the earth dating back tens of thousands of years.

Noticing a gap in the digital representation of ceramics, Alexandra decided to create this platform in early 2017 and now she is currently allowing it to be reborn. There wasn’t any platform or resource for critical yet casual discussions revolving around clay. There also weren’t many spaces that were inherently feminist where women could lend their experiences working with ceramics. Alexandra aims to have this platform function as a digital resource for contemporary makers, by providing biographical insights on both women in this contemporary moment and women who have had a great impact on contemporary art history.

[contemporary-ceramics]

AUGUSTA SAVAGE (1892-1962)

Augusta Savage is an American sculptor who was born in Green Cove Springs,  Florida. She moved to New York City in 1921 to study sculpture at Cooper Union, her talent and drive allowed for many of her courses to be waived and she graduated in three years. Savage endured many instances of injustice as a result of her gender and race, most prominently when she was selected to be one of the one-hundred American women to attend a summer program at Fontainebleau, Paris. She was later refused by the French institution because of her race. She eventually received a fellowship that allowed her to study sculpture in Paris. Savage endured misogynoir throughout her life, she endlessly battles to create space for black women in her community and the art world.

Savage returned to New York City to pursue her passions for community development and education. In 1932 she founded the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts in Harlem, New York. During this time she was also the director of the Harlem Community Arts Centre. Savage’s dedication to being an educator of the arts and endless labour to promote women of colour and their artistic production allowed for black women artists’ narratives to be heard. Many of the prominent figures in the Harlem Renaissance were working under her mentorship and guidance. In addition to her loyal mentorships she established through her community in Harlem, she paved the way and advocated for space.

Savage obtained countless commissions and gained a significant amount of recognition in her lifetime. The peak of her production occurred during the great depression, class struggle in addition to her gender and race created barriers Savage transcended to obtain the attention of collectors. Her work explored the intersections of class, race, and gender through her conceptual rendering of forms. Many of the figures she sculpted took on traits of anonymity in order to convey concepts and symbols that are broad and communicated collective experiences of black individuals living in America during the early 1900’s. Her work was monumental and had a profound aesthetic and conceptual impact on the viewer. Many of her sculptures have been damaged or lost as a result of a flaw in the material she used in her production. Savage often used clay to render and cast the works in plaster and painted the surface to appear as bronze. Her financial situation didn’t permit the use of more archival materials, like her ideal medium, bronze.

Savages’ story and career are so often untold, her work is known to few art historians and the lack of archive of her very significant and influential work is astounding. In 1940 she retired from her art production and pursued a quieter life in the rural environment as a farmer. Her life was dedicated to her career as a cultural producer and she tirelessly advocated for those who shared similar ambitions. Savage deserves boundless recognition and that is why I chose to write about her although most of her finished works were not ceramic objects, her connection to clay in her process and her impact that lives on in contemporary sculpture are undeniable. Augusta Savage took charge of her narrative and paved the way for women in sculpture and beyond.